I just caught a comment in Facebook about somebody complaining that his brand new semi auto rifle in .22LR was having malfunctions in the form of failure to extract. I am going to go out on a limb and say many gun owners do not understand that you need to give your brand new gun a good cleaning and lubrication before the first shots go downrange. And after that, you need a minimum of 200 rounds shot though the gun to get the parts start working smoothly. 300 would even be better and a good cleaning and lubrication all over again.
Some years back, I was at the range shooting with some friends and one of them had a well seasoned Glock 34 he used to shoot IDPA* with and had not take out the safe for a long time. As he put rounds downrange, we could actually hear squeaks we immediately identified as metal rubbing against metal. When he finished shooting two full mags without a failure, we asked him (laughing) when was the las time he had cleaned and oiled the gun. He paused and admitted he did not remember. A quick check revealed that it was both filthy and dry as a bone. A couple of drops of oil removed any mousy sounds during shooting.
Process that again: It did not fail.
So, be patient. Clean and lubricate your firearm, specially if you are shooting the notoriously dirty .22 LR and make sure you put enough rounds through it before you decide to call it a piece of crap and sent it to the gunsmith or return it to the store.
- Our IDPA matches usually used between 90 and 120 rounds. That gun probably had 45 matches on it at a minimum, so that makes it over 4,000 rounds shot through it.
New marketing slogan, “Glock, the ergonomic 2×4 you can shoot ’til it squeaks.”
$450 Glock, I will put 200-300 rounds down range to break it in.
$5,000 1911? Why am I doing what I paid someone else to do?
Wait… Why didn’t I get ten Glocks again?
Because then you’d have 9 more crappy pieces of tactical Tupperware more than you need.
One wonders why the instruction books that come with each gun don’t make this point.